2022 Pashnit Touring on a Hayabusa

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Sequoia Motorcycle Tour

Early April means green grass in the Sierra Nevada foothills, and cool temps.
Pashnit Motorcycle Tours heads for Sequoia NP riding through the Southern Sierra Nevada Foothills to reach the giant sequoias.
We were blessed with perfect weather, and miles of rolling green hills with almost zero traffic. Perfect day for riding.
So many riders signed up for this tour, about 30 riders signed up and that's too many, so I had to add a second tour date in May, so we'll ride this tour twice this season with groups of 15 & 15 balances out rather well.

Meeting in Lindsay, a tiny Central Valley town, a few less bugs

Through Terra Bella to reach the foothills in the distance into the early morning sun

Starts getting twisty at Fountain Springs

 

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Yes, those are two Africa Twins, not a bike you see very often. Al (on the lead bike) rode over from Arizona for this ride.

 

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Luc who has multiple bikes to choose from rode his Kawasaki ZX-12R on this ride.

 

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Rolling through Kern County in the Southern Foothills

Meadows of wildflowers

Granite Road, wanna guess why they call it Granite Rd?

 

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over to Round Mountain Rd. Yes, it goes around the mountain.

And had brand-new pavement - and single lane for much of the twisty portions

 

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Oil wells are everywhere

At the summit

 

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Round Mountain is well-worth checking out if you're near Bakersfield.

Tourists take the left road. We take the right road. Headed up the Kern River, we love Kern Canyon Rd into Bodfish, twisty, deserted and avoids that straight stretch of highway.

 

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Bodfish for lunch

 

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Remember when this bike came out? I do.

 

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Headed out of the Kern River Canyon and back into the mountains

All the way to the Western Divide Highway: I recently finished an article about this road:
Highway 190 | Western Divide Highway | Pashnit.com

Don't think this applies to us.

 

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Trail of 100 Giants is a short walking trail to a grove of Giant Sequoias. They're right beside the road, and few people ever come up here.

 

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Root ball from toppled Sequoia

 

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Came here to visit my favorite pair of downed sequoias

Only to discover parts of them were burned from the August 2021 Sequoia Fire

 

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When they first fell in 2015, they looked like this.

 

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Same trees

 

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When the twin sequoias first fell in 2015 over the top of the walking path, the park service came in to re-route the path. They rebuilt the path alongside the tree, a third Sequoia toppled over and landed on the twin, but then wildfire last fall burned up the path. Bill at the end of the path (what's left of it) for scale.

The oldest known giant sequoia has been measured at 3,300 years of age. At the base, the trees can grow to 30 feet thick and 94 feet around the circumference.

The grand irony to loggers who discovered these trees in the 1850s is the wood, unlike coast redwoods, from Sequoia trees is largely unusable in commercial uses. Wood from the giant sequoia is surprisingly brittle, and of poor use in manufacturing. The wood from these massive trees was used for matchsticks, pencils, and fence boards. The logging industry eventually abandoned efforts to cut down the massive trees due to poor profits and the growing conservation movement to save these trees.

 

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These tree don't get as tall as Coast Redwoods. More often, they are struck by lightning and the tops die. However, the trees continue to grow and expand in girth. They are also known to be the heaviest living things on earth. Shallow root systems and no tap root mean they are often toppled by wind storms.

A single sequoia log is the size of a small car.